League not above law
National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern has levied swift suspensions on seven players following Saturday night’s brutal New York Knicks-Denver Nuggets brawl at Madison Square Garden. The teams climaxed incessant taunting with fistfights that emptied both benches and threatened fans when the players battled across courtside seats. The slugfest would have invited criminal indictments if it had occurred on Main Street in any town or city in America.
Likewise, the courtroom should await Saturday night’s combatants because their street-fighting clearly fell outside the rules of the game. Criminal prosecution would treat these professional athletes as we treat other citizens. A fan who slugs someone in a major league arena would almost certainly be arrested, but a player who slugs an opponent on the court 200 feet away ordinarily faces only a league-imposed suspension or fine.
The professional leagues alone should police fouls inherent in the give-and-take of the game. Prosecutors should not intrude because players consent to fouls, and even to the prospect of injury, whenever they suit up. Players and fans alike know that controlled aggression is central to sports like basketball, even though similar acts of physical aggression might be criminal if committed off the court by ordinary citizens. A basketball player should not fear arrest merely because the referee whistles a foul and the opponent is injured.
Criminal prosecution should result only from mayhem like Saturday night’s on-court riot. When players cross the line between legitimate athletic performance and conduct clearly outside the rules, prosecution serves a worthwhile purpose because the saturation of professional sports on TV guarantees an audience of children, who often imitate the pros. With impressionable youngsters watching, we can no longer tolerate the double standard that grants professional athletes virtual license to commit assault because “it’s part of the game.” When pros like the Knicks and Nuggets commit muggings clearly outside the rules, their conduct is not part of the game.
Prosecutors have found it difficult to convict professional athletes for assaults during games, but focusing solely on the outcome misses the point. Juries occasionally acquit despite sufficient evidence of guilt, but this potential for “jury nullification” exists with any sympathetic defendant. Where prosecutors have evidence sufficient to charge a player for street-brawling during a game, they signal social disapproval as much by the charge as by the outcome.
The nation’s young athletes need this signal. Professional sports franchises and their players are among the nation’s most lucrative businesses and highest paid citizens. In return for this bounty, we may rightfully treat them as trustees of the national athletic experience.
The pros breach the trust when they fail to teach children that violence clearly outside the rules holds no place in organized sports at any level. In appropriate cases, the lesson must be taught by the force of law, which seeks to teach us all.